


JonElias Week 2020 Prompt Fills

by CaptainSwank



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26091598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainSwank/pseuds/CaptainSwank
Summary: Small snacks for JonElias week!
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 25
Kudos: 73
Collections: Jonelias Week 2020





	1. HR Violations, T. "Unpaid Overtime"

“Elias,” Jon said bitterly, after unceremoniously bursting through his boss’s office door. He had a little bit more to say to the man, and if he was interrupting some kind of dread ritual or arcane practice, so be it.

“Yes, Jon, what is it?” Elias responded tiredly, as if  _ he _ were the one entitled to feeling put upon today.

“A month, Elias. I was gone for a  _ month _ !” Jon said, and he shut the door in a manner that was decidedly uncivil. 

“Must we go through all this again? I’ve already told you that I’d looked for you,” Elias said, sounding for all the world like he was explaining a simple concept to an even simpler man. Jon didn’t much like his tone.

“You don’t have  _ any  _ idea what I’ve gone through,” Jon told him, and while he was aiming for “angry” he may have landed somewhere closer to “sullen.” It’s not as if he would expect his boss to be his best friend, not in any universe.  _ Especially  _ not in the one wherein the man was some kind of eldritch abomination. A little understanding might be appropriate, though. 

“Much to my displeasure,” Elias muttered, and he sounded irritated now. 

“Well, if you’re that desperate to  _ know _ ,” Jon said. What little patience he had left in his very much depleted stores was rapidly evaporating. “ _ Obviously _ I gathered information that could be used towards stopping the Unknowing. And in addition to that, I took a very interesting statement.”

“Yes, well. Good work.” Elias heaved a delicate little sigh.

“Right. Work,” Jon repeated, sounding more than a little smug. Elias raised his eyebrows.

“Really, Jon?”

“I’m entitled to  _ some  _ kind of compensation, surely?” Jon said with a smirk.

“Isn’t this all a little petty? Are you really so desperate to punish me?” Elias asked, unwavering in his condescension. 

“I’ll take what I can get,” Jon said darkly. At that, Elias sighed again, a little more dramatically this time. Then he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Jon’s smirk intensified as he began to exult in his victory, but the expression was wiped from his face when Elias suddenly pushed back his chair and stood up.

Jon often forgot how tall Elias was. He was still unused to how his boss comported himself now that he had let them all see what he truly was. Elias had seemed much smaller as an unassuming bureaucrat, before they were all aware of the everlasting horror in which they were all trapped. But he strode around his desk and up into Jon’s space in just a few steps. Jon didn’t have enough time to prepare himself, and he flinched away from Elias’s sudden presence within his own precious personal bubble.

“The world is coming to an end, Jon,” he said, and there was danger lurking somewhere in his velvet tone. “This sort of childish rebellion seems more suited to Tim, or Melanie. Or perhaps even Martin.” Elias put his hand on Jon’s shoulder, and it made him jump.

“I-I,” he tried.

“I don’t need you fomenting mutiny within my ranks,” Elias continued smoothly, as he ignored Jon’s attempt at protest. Before Jon could stop him or react, Elias released his shoulder and grabbed his chin. “What I  _ do  _ need from you, what I do need you to do, is to keep. It. Together.” He tipped Jon’s face up to look into his cold gray eyes. It made Jon shiver. “For them. For the world. For me. Can you do that for me, Jon?” Jon swallowed, and he nodded.

Elias’s fingers trailed over Jon’s bobbing throat, where he was so recently mangled. And then he dropped them, and he gently took Jon’s hand. Jon hissed, because careful as it was, the contact was still agonizing. 

“Don’t think for a moment that I won’t provide you with what you need,” he whispered, as he caressed Jon’s hurt fingers, light as a feather. Jon blinked twice, and he started breathing again when Elias released him to return to sit back at his desk and place his glasses back upon his nose. “Will that be all?” he asked Jon, in the bland tone which once seemed so normal. Jon nodded, finding himself strangely unable to speak. He left the room quietly, and tried to focus on the throbbing pain that still pulsed in his palm.

When he checked his bank account the next day, a direct deposit had been made for a month’s wages. 


	2. Caretaking, T. "Wound Man"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon's body has sustained a great deal of damage, of late. He retreats to a private space to change his bandages.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” said Jon, under his breath. The nail scissors that he had been using to cut the gauze and the medical tape clattered to the washroom floor, and the echo seemed especially loud in the empty space. It was sort of pathetic, really, hiding out here after hours to metaphorically lick his wounds. But he couldn’t impose upon Georgie any more than he already had. She’d been clear about that. He’d much rather make an ass of himself here, fumbling about one-handed, without risking Georgie walking in on such a sad scene.

That, of course, was when  _ Elias  _ walked in.

“Jon?” he said uselessly, and Jon cursed internally this time.  _ Never mind _ , he thought. God, he’d  _ much  _ rather that it’d been Georgie. “Are you quite alright?” 

“What does it look like?” Jon muttered. He didn’t see the point in censoring his sarcasm. A pointless response to a pointless question.

“If you need any help, I’d be more than willing to lend a hand,” Elias told him, serious and businesslike. 

“Oh yes,  _ now  _ you’re willing to help,” Jon replied. “Perfect timing.”

“Yes, well. If you have everything in hand, then.” Elias turned to leave, and at that moment Jon managed the gentlest of nudges against his massacred hand, and it took everything he had in him to swallow his scream. Elias paused with his hand on the door, and turned to look at Jon. Jon burned with hatred at the softness of his gaze, but his scorched palm won out.

“Fine,” he bit out. “Fine.” Elias let the door fall shut and sighed in sympathy. Jon could almost have a go at him with the tiny scissors. But he probably wouldn’t even be able to scratch him with his off hand. 

“Let’s have a look, shall we?” Elias said quietly.

“You might want to brace yourself,” Jon said, with a sad little laugh. “It certainly isn’t pretty.” 

“I’m sure I’ll be alright,” said Elias, in that unsettlingly earnest way of his. “Though I appreciate your concern.” He held out his hand to accept Jon’s. It took him a moment, but he gathered enough of himself to stop protectively cradling his hand to let Elias see it. When he finally did, Elias sucked air between his teeth in his concern. Jon didn’t even like to look at the thing himself, but he almost felt he had to, like a gawker at a car crash. The exposed tissues that were not meant to be seen by man made his stomach lurch, but there was something fascinating about his twisted and blistered flesh nonetheless.

Elias took the damp cloth Jon had prepared, and began to gently clean the burn. Jon gasped, but did not cry out. As it went on, it was all he could do to not bite clean through his lip at the pain. 

“No painkillers, Jon?” Elias asked conversationally. 

“It… it’s not so bad,” Jon said. The pain was more localized than the tunnels the worms had made all over his body, but it was definitely more intense. And the agony lasted longer than what Michael did to him.

“Really,” said Elias, in a deadpan tone that implied disbelief. 

“I… I didn’t want to… to come to rely on them,” Jon said. He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to share this disturbingly personal truth with the man who left him to be relentlessly moisturized for a month, among other things. But in this moment, it didn’t seem any more strange than Elias’s deft and gentle hands carefully manipulating his own to clean it and apply a bandage. 

“Hmm,” said Elias, and Jon felt himself blush. He knew it was unsafe to leave himself so open around this man. “What exactly happened? Are those…ah, that looks like...”

“A handshake,” Jon said darkly. He doubted that such an answer could surprise Elias.

“It’ll leave a dreadful scar,” Elias said, in a tone Jon didn’t feel equipped to parse. “I can’t imagine how it felt.”

“You should be grateful for that,” Jon said, with a humourless chuckle. “It was beyond anything I could have ever imagined. Almost… almost indescribable.” 

“Try,” whispered Elias. And so Jon did.

“It was like… It was like all my nerves were being pulled and… and twisted, and tied. Like my flesh was being flayed off of me. And it never ended, and it never let up, and it…” As he trailed off, Jon noticed that Elias’s breath had quickened.

“I… I can stop, if it’s too much,” he said awkwardly. 

“No.” Elias sounded a little hoarse. He cleared his throat. “No, Jon, that’s quite alright,” he said. “Wouldn’t you like some help with your throat?”


	3. Denial, T. "Hunger"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias has been keeping Jon hungry just to see what he'll do.

Elias doesn’t need to tie Jon up or hold him down to keep him still-- not when he’s like this. All he needs to do is ask, gently and firmly, for Jon’s compliance. It really seems as though his little Archivist will do  _ anything  _ in this sorry state he’s in. Anything to get what he wants, what he needs, what he  _ craves _ .

He feels Jon’s wide, round, wet eyes on him as he slowly and methodically opens the cabinets about the room, running his fingers over the yellowing file folders inside of them before shutting them again. In the silence of the office he thinks he can hear Jon’s desperate swallows and quickened breaths and the soft and tiny sounds that he lets escape his throat. 

Even if he doesn’t truly hear them, he knows that they are there.

Elias pulls some binders from the shelves, and he flips through the old typewritten pages. He crouches down to rifle through the boxes stacked dangerously in the corners of the room, and he selects a few sheets that are old and written by hand. When he slowly turns around, he sees Jon shudder. Jon drops his gaze and he trembles, and Elias takes a moment to appreciate the way the colour’s drained from his face, and the dark lines under his eyes, and the thick long lashes that frame them.

“And what would you like today, Jon?” Elias asks solicitously. Jon answers him with a pathetic little whine. It’s so easy to torment this man, and so Elias elects to indulge. “Something new and fresh?” he says, his words laced with cruelty. “Something finely aged, perhaps?” He sees Jon squirm. “Which would you prefer?” And then he places the statements on the desk and he slides up behind Jon where he sits behind it. He rests his hands upon Jon’s shoulders and he gives them a vicious little squeeze. 

“Can I interest you in something rare and raw and  _ meaty _ ?” he whispers, as he pushes his thumbs into the tight muscles of Jon’s back to feel them twitch and hear him gasp. He drops his voice even softer and lower now. “Something with a little  _ heat _ ?” And then he bends forward so that his lips are very nearly touching the delicate shell of Jon’s ear. “Something dirty?  _ Filthy _ ?” He feels Jon’s body go taut beneath his fingers. 

“A-anything,” Jon whispers.

“So sorry, what was that?” Elias asks, so very patiently.

“Anything, whatever you’d like, whatever y-you’d like to hear.” Jon’s practically in tears.

“What  _ I’d  _ like to hear? Ah, but Jon, this is all for  _ you _ . Surely you have some sort of, mm,  _ preference _ .” Elias moves to Jon’s side, keeping one hand on his shoulders and flipping open one of the folders with his other. 

Jon breaks. 

“Elias,  _ please _ , I’ll do anything, I’ll-- I’ll even… I’ll…” And Elias watches him close his eyes and take a deep breath, and then open them again to stare down between Elias’s legs. Jon licks his lips, but Elias knows it’s all uncertain nervousness. He smiles, because the sweetness of Jon’s terror might even feel better than the alternative.

“Hush, Jon, shh.” Elias puts his hand on Jon’s neck. His skin is burning hot. “What’s your hurry? Why don’t we take our time and enjoy ourselves?” 

“Because… b-because…” Jon tries.

“What is it, Jon?”

“Because I need it, Elias, I’m hungry, I’m so hungry I can't  _ stand _ it,  _ please  _ let me.” Jon’s shoulders are quaking so hard, poor thing. “I… I’m _ starving _ .” In his desperation he shakily reaches out for Elias’s belt, but Elias grabs Jon’s hands before he can do anything he will most certainly regret. That’s for later, once Elias has finally hurt Jon enough to make him his. 

“Well, you’ve waited so nicely, Jon, and I’m very proud of you,” Elias begins. Jon whimpers. “So I think we can accommodate your needs,” he says, dipping into his best boardroom tone. “You’ve been so good that you certainly deserve a reward.” He takes Jon’s face between his palms. “But why should we stop at just one statement?” he asks him. Jon blinks up at him slowly. “You’re going to take every single one of them for me,” he whispers. With his thumbs, he wipes away the tears that spill from Jon’s eyes.

“I… I can’t,” he sobs, and Elias tips his face up towards him. 

“You can and you will,” Elias assures him. “You can, and you will.”

  
  



	4. Religious Themes, T. "Fourteen Devotions"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon is forced to face his divinity.

It’s probably for the best that he’s left them all behind, Jon thinks to himself. This is something that he ultimately has to do on his own. He’s the one who started it, and it’s only right that he be the one to end it all. After all, he knows what Basira thinks about him after he… after he dealt with Daisy. She told him clearly enough. And he knows what Martin thought when it happened, too.  _ He _ didn’t have to say anything. But Jon made his choice; chose Martin’s life over Daisy’s, because that’s the sort of power he’s been imbued with, it seems. An arbiter of life and death when it comes to his colleagues, his friends, his love.

Well, if he’s that much a monster, he won’t taint them any further. He’ll end the whole thing, and he’ll free them all.

He reaches the terrible tower that keeps watch over all soon enough. Its sick, pulsing, ever-present call drew him in easily, and no one left alive had the power to stop him, or even slow his approach. But when he arrives at the dread structure that sees and can be seen from all places, he finds that it’s not the only new piece of eldritch architecture to blight the darkened landscape.

At its feet there sits a building, elegant and ornate. While nowhere near as infinitely tall as the tower, its unnerving spires reach up towards the unblinking eye that observes in turn his own observation. It inspires in Jon that same pure terror that sits within him at every moment, which has become almost a comfort in its constancy. But it also creates the distinct impression that it’s been conceived and planned and constructed with the utmost care.

If Jon still needed to inhale, he knows it’d leave him breathless. He cannot help but enter.

He steps into its dark narthex and gazes about in quiet awe. Above him, the twisted, creeping chandeliers glisten with unholy light. The carpet beneath his feet is a deep rich red, and it looks soft and beautiful. And all around him, he feels the walls watch him. He feels their recognition and their love.

It is a horrifying and wonderful experience. He feels expansive and infinite inside, like he does in those moments before he channels and executes the Eye’s will. It’s heady and disorienting for a moment, but he stands there and focuses his mind, forcing the noise and the fear to quiet before he explores this vile, glorious cathedral further.

But when he steps into the naive, that focus is dropped, and it shatters.

When he looks above the aisles, there are windows that glitter and shine in their glowing, chromatic brilliance. Jon stares at them for a time, and he slowly removes his rucksack and drops it to the floor. It’s suddenly unbearably heavy. He takes off his jacket, too. It’s suddenly unbearably hot. He stares at the windows for a little while longer, unwilling to believe, fighting against acceptance. But however hard he wishes for it to not be so, what he sees in that glass cannot be denied.

What he sees is himself.

In the first huge window he is small and vulnerable. He is curled up in the center of a massive web, and he is covered in tiny black bodies. The next depicts him huddled and cowering, infested, bleeding and crying. The colours in the one beside it are impossible; disorienting. In the chaos of the glass he can spot a door, and his body, and his eyes. He stares at the window where he is shown kneeling and clutching his hand, and he can almost feel the flames that surround his crumpled form.

He turns to the opposite wall and sees his stained glass self falling through the open sky, his arms reaching out for nothing. Then there’s one where his thin fingers clutch at his throat as he is surrounded by snarling nightmare beasts. His skin feels raw when he gazes upon the next one, where so many synthetic hands reach out to caress his flesh. He starts to shake a little when he sees the window wherein he seems silent and still and peaceful and dead.

At the crossing he looks down the transept. On one end he is pursued by a shrouded attacker, his fear writ plainly across his face. At the other, fingers probe a dark and gaping hole in his side. 

He raises his eyes when he approaches the apse and sees himself sinking, one hand reaching out of the dirt. He sees himself blindfolded, with black tears seeping straight through the cloth. He sees himself scared and solitary and shrouded in gentle mists.

And above all else, huge and imposing, the final window rises above him. In it he is open-armed and divine, perfect and beautiful in his suffering for his dread patron, and above his head there is a halo. A halo made of eyes.

Jon begins to laugh.

He falls to his knees, and he doesn’t stop laughing. It’s high and it’s shaky and it’s a laugh he’s laughed before. He brings his hands to his face and they come away wet. He clutches his hair and he doesn’t know how long he weeps before he hears,

“Jon?”

He lifts his head from his hands and Elias -- Jonah -- is there, walking slowly towards him. 

“I knew you’d come, Jon,” Jonah says quietly. Jon’s name still echoes around the cathedral built to celebrate his dazzling ascension. Jonah reaches out his hand to Jon and he stares at it. He can feel the tears streaming down his face, and he can feel the air vibrating in the room, and he can almost hear what sounds like, from very far away, the rejoicing of a many-voiced choir. 

He reaches up to take the hand extended to him, and he can feel Jonah. 

He clutches the hand in both of his own, and he presses his forehead against it. He doesn’t stop crying, even as Jonah pulls him up and holds him against him. 

He can’t stop his tears even as Jonah lays him down upon the altar, and he begins to worship. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again! I’m not trying to slander Martin… that’s just what happens when you read someone’s traumatized knee-jerk thoughts instead of asking them how they really feel post-processing!!


	5. Altered Mental States, T. "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias has something for Jon that might loosen him up a little.

“Really, Jon? You haven’t ever…?” Elias asks him with a hint of slyness, as he lights the joint between his lips. 

“Well, in university… once…” Jon’s words are grumbled under his breath, and they’re barely audible. They aren’t precisely true, either. But he had definitely been in a room wherein weed was smoked.

“Too much the good boy?” Elias says, and there’s something about both his words and his tone that make Jon’s guts clench. Elias exhales smoke into his face and Jon coughs.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Jon says icily, and he takes what Elias offers him. He’s remembering why he left that particular room so quickly now. The smoke had made his eyes and throat itch, and he didn’t much like that lightheaded feeling that he was starting to encounter now. 

He tries his best to inhale, but he coughs and splutters.  _ Maybe it’s for the best _ , he thinks to himself. Ultimately, what he’s afraid of here is the drug and the resulting loss of control. Elias  _ did  _ offer it to him as a way to ‘ _ relax _ ’. But some fundamental part of him protests that this is not a man around whom he should  _ be out of control _ . He tries to take comfort in the fact that this man is just his boss; just a benign glorified accountant that has taken an interest in him. An interest about which he’s not entirely sure he is comfortable. He tries to take another hit off the joint and he fails.

“Tsk.” Elias makes a little noise of what must be disapproval, and Jon narrows his eyes. He won’t be made to feel inferior over something as asinine as  _ this _ . “Do you need my help, Jon?” Elias asks him, and moves closer to him on the loveseat on the balcony of his flat. Jon doesn’t think that he does, but he finds he can’t move any farther back. The armrest digs into him and he wonders why it was that he agreed to this in the first place. Elias moves even closer and reaches around to place his hand on the back of Jon’s neck. Jon flinches, but not away from Elias’s fingers, which slide up to the back of his head to rub against his scalp. 

“Elias--” Jon tries, but Elias’s lungs are already full of smoke and he leans forward to use his other thumb to take Jon’s chin and pull gently  _ down _ . Jon’s mouth opens and Elias presses against it and he breathes into him. Jon drinks it down like he’s supposed to and if Elias’s lips linger against him for longer than is strictly necessary to pour the smoke into him, he’s too shocked by the whole thing to do anything about it.

“There,” Elias says quietly. “That’s much better, isn’t it?” Jon’s head is spinning already, so he lets Elias anchor it to the rest of his body by holding Jon’s face in his hands. 

“Y-yes, i-it. It might be,” Jon says. He looks into Elias’s piercing eyes with his own blurry ones. He’s disturbed by the way his mind feels untethered. But the sensation  _ is  _ admittedly new, and he can’t help but be curious for more.

He parts his lips and Elias takes the invitation willingly. This time Jon presses forward before Elias can pull back. His lips feel tender and his body feels hot, and he just might’ve made a tiny sound into Elias’s mouth when he finally felt him pull away.

“A little more,” Elias whispers to him, and Jon’s loose and fuzzy when he nods. His eyes slip shut and this time Elias’s tongue follows the smoke inside his mouth. The sound that Jon makes is a little louder this time. His lips are pliant when Elias sucks on them, and when he strokes his tongue against Jon’s. Elias must have put the joint in the ashtray because he’s got both of his hands on Jon again, and Jon finds himself practically falling into Elias’s lap. 

“Elias,” Jon says, and he’s not sure why. 

“Yes, Jon?” Elias whispers against his lips, and Jon moans into his mouth. Elias manhandles him until Jon’s straddling his lap, and he goes with him easily. Everything seems like a good idea now; everywhere Elias touches him feels like fire. 

Jon puts his arms around Elias’s neck to hold on. He doesn’t want to fall off. 

He feels Elias’s grin hot against his lips. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why are Jon and Elias smoking weed together? Well, I wrote two different leadups and they were both very stupid! So I suppose we shall never know.


	6. Inhumanity, T. "The Cost of Doing Business"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Jonah discuss their similarities.

Jon blinks once or twice to clear his head, and then he’s fully back in his body. He may not have been here for very long, or it might have been forever. Either way, he’s always disoriented in that moment when his mind returns from its rovings. Sometimes he feels like he’s waking up from a horrible dream, or like he’s been watching a film of some other man’s nightmares. But every time he comes back to himself completely he’s always here, chained and kneeling at the foot of Jonah’s terrible throne. 

He’s been gone so long that parts of him are numb and parts of him are aching. When he extends his legs as far as he is able he groans quietly. He feels Jonah’s fingers in his hair, placed there as if to comfort him.

“That’s  _ much _ better,” Jonah says, and Jon watches him sigh and stretch luxuriously. “Don’t you feel much better?” Jon could lie, and tell Jonah that when his mind returns from its travels-- after taking in the pure sweet fear of anyone and everyone left in their world-- he doesn’t pulse with power and with pleasure. But what would be the point?

For when he sends himself to wander and drink his fill of the psychic agony of others, it feeds him more than any meal had ever fueled his old body. It sustains Jonah, and helps him manipulate his nightmare kingdom in any way he wishes. And it nourishes the Eye, and his god rewards him.

“Must you really continue to resist, Jon?” Jonah asks him, when Jon doesn’t answer him. “Mm, well, that’s alright,” he says, as Jon continues to remain silent. “I suppose you  _ do  _ have all eternity to come to grips with your little predicament.” Jon imagines what it might be like to strangle Jonah with his chains. Jonah’s laugh rings like Jon’s bonds when he trembles.

His collar chafes him but he supposes that it’s fitting, pet and attack dog that he is. When Jonah uses him for more  _ hands-on _ purposes, Jon will occasionally be let off his lead to obliterate whatever irritants the other upstart powers attempt to send to unseat Jonah from his place of power. But when the smiting is done, Jon is called back to the tower, and he returns. Even if Jonah couldn’t make him come back to him, the Eye would find him wherever he might run.

Even though he just ate, Jon is still hungry. And time is stagnant here, and there are still some things he can’t yet Know.

“What happened to you?” Jon says wearily. He thinks of the permanent horror and pain that Jonah has inflicted upon all life. “Have you ever cared for anyone but yourself? How could you… how could you do this?” Jonah closes his eyes and Jon watches the pleasure spill through him. When he opens them, he smiles at Jon to show him that he’s answering of his own volition, and that he appreciated that little hit of bliss.

“Oh Jon,” he says, and Jonah caresses him high on his cheek. “I simply wanted to  _ know _ .” Jon leans away from his fingers, and Jonah reaches forward to slip two of them into Jon’s collar to hold him where he wants him. “Didn’t you?” 

Jon shivers and he closes his eyes--  _ all _ of them. 


	7. Choices and Dynamic Shift, T. "Every Angel is Terrifying"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end.

“ _ Yes _ ,” said Jon, as he bowed his head before the king of their nightmare world. “Y-you’re right,” he said. “You’ve… you’ve won. There’s nothing I can do to save everyone.” He raised his head to look into Jonah’s hungry eyes. “There’s nothing I can do to reverse the things I’ve done. Yes, Jonah, I’ll-- I’ll join you. Please... show me everything.” Jonah smiled softly and reached out a hand. “Please use me… however you wish.” And Jon took what he was offered. 

Jon took the hand and he pulled Jonah in against him. And then before he could say or do anything at all, Jon pushed him down, down onto the ground and pressed his weight on top of him. All his eyes began to open and his wings began to grow, and his sharp and lethal claws began their slow extension. Jon held Jonah down and then he put those claws so close to Jonah’s eyes.

“ _ Really _ ,” Jon said, in dark triumph. “You  _ really  _ believed that I would join you. You really thought that I would give myself to you and let you own me,” he hissed.

“Jon--”

“ _ No! _ You’ve spent all this time watching me, all of this time inside of my head, and your pitiful ego really blinded you to the possibility that you might be denied something that you wanted?”

“My sincerest congratulations to you for becoming so powerful as to hide your true thoughts from me,” Jonah said. He was trying for a tone of dismissive condescension, Jon knew, but the panic was beginning to creep in at the edges. “But I’m quite tired of this game. Get. Off. Of me.”

“ _ Make me _ ,” Jon said, and he could feel the power of their God resisting its infliction upon its most prized acolyte, and he could feel Jonah resisting too. None of it mattered anymore. 

“ _ Jon _ ,” Jonah hissed. “Jon, listen to me. Listen to reason,” he said, as if he were still in control. Jon was in control now.

“I’m through with listening to you,” Jon told him. “Everything you’ve ever said,  _ everything  _ you’ve ever told me…Never again.” Jonah had begun to struggle beneath him, but then his struggling turned to writhing agony and he cried out beneath Jon. It felt hot. It was starting to get very hot.

“What have you done?” Jonah whispered. Jon was jubilant in the fact that he had to ask.

“Martin has your body and it’s in the Archives,” Jon said. “He’s burning statements again, Jonah. This time  _ I _ was the distraction.”

“No,” Jonah said, and it was beautiful to hear it. “Jon, you couldn’t--”

“Oh?” Jon said, drawing all the smugness from the word that he was able. “I  _ couldn’t _ ? Why don’t you take a look and  _ see _ .” Jon let Jonah peer briefly into him. Unlike Jonah, he wasn’t one for long and tortured victory speeches. 

“You’re a fool, Jon,” Jonah said, and Jon could hear the anger simmering in his voice. “If you keep me here, you’ll die too. You’ll destroy everything that we’ve built!”

“Well,” Jon said bitterly. “If you’ll feel a  _ fraction  _ of the pain you’ve inflicted on me while you burn, I know that it’ll be worth it.”

“You still fear death. You still fear me. You still fear  _ yourself _ .”

“Of course I do,” Jon said, as if he pitied Jonah. “But it doesn’t matter. If  _ this  _ is the cost of freeing everyone and protecting the one I love, I’ll gladly pay it.”

“Ungrateful!” Suddenly it was as if the mask had been pulled cruelly away. Jonah didn’t much sound like a mild bureaucrat any longer. Jon watched as the pain shot through him. “After all I’ve done for you!” he snarled. “I gave you this. I  _ made  _ you this. You were nothing, and I made you a  _ god!  _ You could never have tasted such power without me! Your fear makes you weak! How  _ dare  _ you waste what the Eye has given us!” Jon dug his talons into the side of Jonah’s face, slow and shallow.

“I was a fool, yes,” Jon whispered viciously. “I let you blind me and bind me and use me. And it  _ did  _ feel good, Jonah,” Jon said. “But this feels better.  _ This  _ feels right.”

“You’re much worse than a fool if you’d give up your life and your power like this. You could have ruled with me. You could have anything,  _ everything _ you could ever want.”

“ _ This _ is what I want.” Jon flicked the blood from the side of Jonah’s face.

“But there’s still more, still so much more, Jon. There’s still more suffering you’ve yet to consume, more pain that you’ve yet to taste.” Jonah’s whispers were slick and insidious. 

“Then I suppose I’ll die not knowing,” Jon ground out, between his growing fangs. Jonah recoiled in pain and in fear. Jon cried out too. He could feel the flames as well.

“You were perfect,” Jonah told him. “You were my perfect creation.” 

“How ironic then that I’ve brought you your destruction.” Jon embraced the old familiar burning as he was warmed from the inside too by Jonah’s despair. But Jonah didn’t seem to hear him. He was looking into Jon’s eyes, looking as far into him as he could go. Jon no longer saw the anger or the fear there. Jonah’s eyes were soft as he gazed upon his instrument and his murderer.

“Perfect,” he whispered again. “Powerful, and in control of your fear, and so enjoying my own. Enjoying my pain.” They both screamed together. The fire was upon them now. Jon nodded and he brought his clawed fingers up to Jonah’s eyes, to end it. Jonah raised his free hands, though the movement cost him dearly, and he let them rest on either side of Jon’s face. 

And he pulled Jon down, and he placed a soft and gentle kiss upon his lips. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was dared to write top Jon, and was asked to write Jon revenge. I thought to myself, I don’t want any of that. I want Jon choosing to join Jonah. Well!


End file.
